Greetings,
The Antelope Valley Human Relations Task Force annual Holiday Potluck and
meeting will be on Monday December 17, 2007 at 6:30 PM at the Palmdale
Chimbole Center.
Forgot what you signed up for at the last meeting? Contact Andy.
Agenda and minutes will be available at the meeting.
See you there.
Thank you,
Bob Forshay
Vice-Chair-AVHRTF
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Saturday, December 15, 2007.
Valley Press
LANCASTER – Student advisers employed by a Washington-based nonprofit organization will go to work in Knight and Eastside high schools in January as part of a pilot program aimed at reducing youth crime and violence at the campuses and in surrounding neighborhoods.
In a special meeting Friday morning, Antelope Valley Union High School District trustees voted 4-1 to approve the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise’s Violence-Free Zone initiative, which would place six to 10 young people as advisers or mentors to work with the approximately 10% of the students causing the most disturbances, officials said.
“I’m hoping it will help a lot of kids,” trustee Donita Winn said after the meeting. “There’s a lot of kids out there that have problems you and I can’t imagine, that we didn’t have when we were teenagers.”
Trustee Lee D’Errico voted against the proposal.
The effort will cost $150,000 at each school, with the City of Palmdale picking up half the cost for Knight High and Lancaster picking up half the cost for Eastside, Winn said.
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Friday, December 14, 2007.
By AMIRA SEYOUM
Valley Press Staff Writer
LANCASTER – A 15-year-old former Knight High School student pleaded no contest in return for three years’ probation in connection with a September 2006 attack by a group of black youths on two Latino teenagers walking home from the school.
Mark Broussard III, who was being prosecuted as an adult on hate crime allegations and felony assault charges, was offered three years’ felony probation at Thursday’s preliminary hearing if he pleaded guilty. He pleaded no contest, which is equivalent to a guilty plea in criminal court but cannot be used against him in a civil case.
Broussard was ordered to stay away from the two victims, who watched the proceedings in a Lancaster courtroom. He is expected to be ordered to pay restitution to the victims and to the state, but the amount hasn’t been established, officials said.
Judge Christopher Estes explained to Broussard that if he violates the terms of probation before the sentencing hearing Jan. 11 the agreement will be thrown out.
I would like to reply to Ray Livingston’s letter of December 3rd about the Human Relations/Hate Crimes Commission meeting in November. He stated that Darren interrupted him to say it was only a political manner. Actually, Darren interrupted him as chair of the meeting to keep him on task, and to let Mr. Jorge know that our Commission is not a political body. Mr. Livingston and Mr. Jorge need to realize that meetings not run by Robert’s Rules of Order quickly descend into chaos. I have been a member of the Commission for some years now and I have found Darren to be even-handed and a good chairman; he will, however, interrupt if he feels the speaker at the time is not speaking to the subject of the meeting. He has interrupted me when I got off-task as he has other members.
This past meeting was the first time I have seen things get heated since the first meeting I attended as a victim of a hate crime about 5 years ago. I would recommend that Mr. Jorge and Mr. Livingston get a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order and learn about how meetings are run. Keeping to the rules can keep the meetings from running more than 2 hours which means I get to go home to my family at a reasonable time.
In addition, I would like to apologize for the way your group was treated by some of the other members. I wanted to hear more of what you had to say. I wish that when Mr. Jorge left the rest of you would have stayed to answer questions. We cannot learn anything about your organization if you do not tell us. And that was why you were invited. I happen to agree with a number of Mr. Jorge’s views on illegal immigration. My great grandparents fled Slovakia and communism, and my husband’s father is a naturalized citizen from Germany.
However, after spending some time on YouTube.com watching their own video of their demonstrations and the profanity they used at the Lancaster Home Depot protest, I was offended. They berated the employees of a store because people were congregating outside it for day labor. Our task force is to aid in the reporting and prosecution of hate crimes in our valley and is run by volunteers. It is definitely not an anti-American forum or I would not participate in it. Civil discussion and public comment is welcomed at the beginning of every meeting and the public is invited to attend our meetings. You can learn more on http://avhrtf.org